(The Center Square) – The story about home sales in Wisconsin is becoming a pattern. The state’s Realtors Association says April saw another double-digit drop in sales, and a more than 7% jump in prices.
“For a second straight month, home sales fell by a substantial margin while prices increased. Existing home sales slid 10.4% when compared to April 2024, and the median price increased 7.3% to $322,000 over that same 12-month period,” April sales report stated.
The report was released Thursday, but was almost identical to March’s report.
March, the association said, saw a 10.2% drop in year-over-year sales, and a 3.7% price increase over March 2024.
Chris DeVincentis, chair of the Realtors Board of Directors, said there simply aren’t enough homes for sale in Wisconsin.
“It’s still a strong seller’s market statewide,” DeVincentis said. The report said while there are a few more homes in some parts of the state, overall, Wisconsin is far away from the sought after six-month supply of available homes.
“Statewide, housing inventories saw a slight improvement, increasing 5.9% to a 3.6-month supply in April,” the report added. “Yet this remains considerably below the six-month supply indicative of a balanced market, which would necessitate a 67% increase in current listings.”
The low inventory and high prices look even worse, association CEO Tom Larson said, because last April’s sales numbers were much, much better.
“We need to remember that April of last year was a very strong month for sales,” Larson added. “In fact, closings spiked 27.7% in April 2024
compared to April 2023. This was the strongest annual growth seen since late 2020.”
The median price for a home in Wisconsin, according to the report, is now $322,000. The association said prices are, of course, higher in the Madison area of south central Wisconsin. The median price there is $375,000.
Prices are also above the median in Milwaukee and the WOW counties. The median price for southeast Wisconsin, according to the Realtors, is $335,000.
Those are also the areas of the state with the most home sales.
The report notes that the Milwaukee-area and Madison-area account for more than 59% of all home sales in Wisconsin.
